Click here to see all of my past Savings Reports and view my interactive net worth chart

Go to How To Track Your Savings  to check out the Saving Ninja Super Spreadsheet.

The markets rebounded a little this month earning my portfolio a 2.33% gain across the board. I’m in slightly uncharted territory right now as my net worth and invested amount goals for the year were 250k and 200k. I flew past those figures already and there are still 4 months left of 2021!

Getting Paid to Write

I didn’t read much when growing up. I’m embarrassed to say that the amount of books I had read at the age of 21 could have been counted on one hand. But since my wife got me into reading 8 years ago, I read books almost every single day. I now find reading a good novel more enjoyable than watching TV and I can happily say that I’ve got over 100 books under my belt, most being 500 page fantasy behemoths!

Reading changed my life for the better, not just as it’s an enjoyable and relaxing hobby, but as it also led me to becoming a better writer. In a world where writing is becoming more important, even in software engineering , I can confidently say that I attribute a lot of my successful job applications to good writing. SavingNinja definitely wouldn’t exist if I didn’t enjoy writing either, one of the reasons I created this website was to hone this particular skill, and it’s certainly improved as can clearly be seen by looking at some of my older posts.

This has all led to one of my long term goals of wanting to publish a book. I dream of being FIRE in a mountain cabin somewhere, writing each day and watching as a new world materialises out of my thoughts and dreams.

Last month I was given the opportunity to trial at a company who would pay me to write, $400 per article, in fact. A hefty sum for doing what I normally do for free. I’m happy to say that they accepted me as an author and I’ll be writing for them in addition to continuing my main job as a software engineer.

What’s even better is these articles are technical tutorials, so I get to study and learn something new about a programming language, then write about it, and get paid at the same time! It really is a dream gig for me, and I attribute it all to reading, and writing on this blog.

I had my first tutorial published in August, and to my surprise it was requested by Google to be added as a chapter in an upcoming book. I need to send in my bio and a headshot for it to be printed on the book as an author. Dream accomplished!? Not quite… I still have that dream of publishing a book as the sole author, but this is one awesome step that I didn’t think would come my way this soon.

My next tutorial is almost finished which will explore building a mobile game in a modern multi-platform programming language which adds even more things that I love; video game development! I actually studied video games programming at university but never made a game after I left. Who would have known that it would take money to entice me to do what I love?

Monthly Round-Up

  • WinDirStat
    • Best program for deleting files and making space. This software is incredible for someone who doesn’t have a huge hard drive and needs to regularly make room, it’s free and intuitive.
  • How writing can advance your career as a developer
    • As referenced in the post above, I found this article by Stack Overflow really inspiring, and made me even more thankful for this blog!

Not much for the round-up this month I’m afraid!

How was your month?